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13 Reasons Why Wiki:Manual of Style
The Manual of Style is the style manual for all articles in 13 Reasons Why community. This manual covers topics in detail and summarizes the key points. This manual is to make it easier to edit and more intuitive by promoting clarity and cohesion, while helping editors write articles with consistent and precise language and formatting. It is to be upheld in all the articles in this community. Disclaimer: This manual is still a work in progress. Anything written here is subject to change, and certain exceptions may apply. Article Names, Sections and Headings Article Titles All pages should have appropriate titles. With regards to capitalization, the first letter of the first word should always be capitalized; the words following (if applicable) should only have a capital first letter if it is a name, a place, or a title. Because there are several unnamed recurring characters in the show, many pages are bound to have names like "Mr. Davis." Titles like these are okay if and only if the character name is not provided in any canonical material. If no official name exists for the character, then it is all right for the title to be a relatively clear and accurate description of the character in question. The following points are critical to formatting article titles: * "Title Case": The first letter of every word in a title must be capitalized, except for articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, prepositions and the "to" in an infinitive. * Full names without titles: Articles about characters should avoid the title or rank, (e.g. Principal Gary Bolan, not Principal Gary Bolan). * Avoid definite or indefinite articles: The definite article (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) should be avoided in article titles except if they are used as the official title. Article Sections : Main article: Layout guide For a detailed description of how an in-universe article must be written and structured, consult the Layout Guide.As a general guide, all in-universe articles should be structured as follows: # Infobox # Opening quote # Description (Serves as an intro before any sections) # Main Sections # Appearances # Trivia # References # External Links # Categories Headings Heading Format In order to create Sections for an article, the (heading) markup must be used headings, not the ' ('bold') markup. Example: : This is a heading which produces: :This is a heading Using this codes, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article. Heading Rules * Unlike Wikipedia and many other wikis, the 13 Reasons Why Wiki uses the Title Capitalization rules ** Capitalize from the first to the last word. ** Capitalize nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions. ** Lowercase articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions. ** Lowercase the "to" in an infinitive. * Links within headings should only be applied to the full title of the heading, never to a part of it. * Headings must not contain images. * There must not be links in headings. Article Bodies Links '''Link articles the frist time they are mentioned in each section, do not link something if it's already been mentioned in that section.' Internal Links Any internal article should be linked in every mention in another article's infobox, once upon its first mention in another article's intro, and once upon its first mention in each of other articles' sub-sections. * Use full article name — When linking, always use the full article name. For example, use Hannah instead of just Hannah (which won't link to an existing article), as the latter comes up as a redlink, and as stated above, this is because the article doesn't exist. You may see it happen on another wikia, coming up as a link that works, and this is because there is a redirect put in place for that article or blank page to link to the correct one. We have not done this for our characters, so please remember to link the full article name. * Links to sections — When linking to a specific section in a different article, please use the hashtag (#) after you have finished typing the main article name, after the hashtag, please write out the section name you want to link to. For example: state "Clay Jensen#Clay's Mistake (Reason #11)" which links straight to the section from the page you are currently on. When you click on the link above it will link you to the section: "Clay's Mistake (Reason #11)", on the page "Clay Jensen". If you are unsure about punctuation please copy the section header after the hashtag, this is recommended as you may not link to the right section, if the section doesn't exist, it will just link to the page, instead of the section you want. When doing this in source editor (or source mode) please remember to use the "|" because it indicates that the words after it are going to be displayed and the words before it are supposed be the link that the words go to. Doing this in visual mode, when clicking the link icon, will do this automatically. * Unnecessary Punctuation — Refrain from linking unnecessary punctuation in the articles. For example, "Hannah's" would be preferred over "Hannah's". External Links External links should not normally be used in the body of an article. Instead, articles can include an External links section at the end, pointing to further information outside 13 Reasons Why wikia as distinct from citing sources. The standard format is a primary heading, External links , followed by a bulleted list of links. * Wikipedia Links — To link to an article in Wikipedia, use wikipedia: and put the article title inside. If an article does not exist by that name, the link will show up as dark red, like this. External links will show up as purple. * Do not use external links in the body of an article — External Links must be reserved for the trivia, external links, and references sections. Images * A picture is better than no picture. Do not remove a picture of a character, item, etc. from an article, even if it doesn't conform to these guidelines unless you replace it with a better image or the image is a copyright violation. * Avoid having text between two or more images (sandwich effect). or between an image and an infobox. * Images that are not part of an infobox, in an article, should be placed where they are most relevant and should not interrupt the flow or the aesthetics of the article. They should also contain a caption. Images should be placed before or after paragraphs or sections of text, not right in the middle of them. ** Tip: Placing them immediately underneath a heading or subheading usually works quite well * For images that are not part of an infobox, Use the "thumb" function in the image tag. Thumbnails shown in the article should generally be 200px/250px. Example: Categories Every article must be categorized, adding one of the existing categories that can be applied to it. Consult the Categorization Guide in order to consult the categories that should be applied to each article. A list of categories can be found . Due to misunderstandings of the whole purpose of categorizing, we ask that you do not create new categories and add them to articles. Most of the time, if a category does not exist, it is not intended to exist, or there is already an existing category that covers its purpose. Please be sure to ask the Administrators before creating a category. Grammar Three C's To best achieve a Good Article, writers here generally apply this rule of thumb: language should be clear, consistent, and concise. * Clarity mandates that the language relay its message sharply, unambiguous, and be wholly self-evident. It is important to be as clear and neutral as possible so as to communicate the idea of a sentence effectively to the reader. * Consistency ensures article flow, an important aspect of being clear. The article should be easy to read and predictable, while assuming a reasonable comprehension level. * Concision, or brevity, is the art of using no more words than necessary to convey an idea, though it should not be misunderstood with "leaving out information". It is an important practice when writing so that you do not lose your audience — try to think "get to the point" as much as possible. Tense The tense varies in the in-universe articles, such as articles of episodes, characters, locations, events and objects. * Present tense should be used for details which are current or a consistent description of the topic. Such articles include; Alive Character, Cast, Episode, and the Book articles. * Past tense should be used for events that occurred in the past, such as in sections like; A Character's biography, an object, location and event's History 'and '''Deceased characters. ' ** If a character dies in the show, the tense does not need to be retroactively changed. Spelling * '''American English spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word usage will be the standard on this wiki's official content such as articles and templates, unless the official term or source is of another language. * Formal use of language is mandatory on all canon mainspace articles to be as encyclopedic and authoritative as possible. * This is to reflect the American origin of 13 Reasons Why. Capitalization Links # Nouns (e.g Names, places, objects, etc) and other meaningful things, must be capitalized. Other things that are just words and are meaningless should not be. For example, Jessica Davis when linked as words: Jessica Davis, Jess, or Jessica should be capitalized, but when linked as: friend, girlfriend or best friend it shouldn't be capitalized. You should write out a place capitalized: "Blue Spot Liquor" instead of "blue spot liquor". either in the first mention and every other subsequent mention. # In source mode: Try to capitalize the hidden links (those linked to other words not identical to the article name, e.g. "Jessica Davis" as Justin's girlfriend = Justin's girlfriend) as the visible word is also capitalized (example: Dance) OR as you normally would if you wrote them into the linked sentence (example: the boy). # Every word in an article's name, with few exceptions, must be capitalized. As such, all links must be capitalized even though they describe common names (e.g. instead of ) either in the first mention and every other subsequent mention. Capitalization of "The" # In general, do not capitalize articles when saying something conventional in the middle of a sentence (e.g. "Hannah did not want the pictures to be released."); however, some idiomatic exceptions, including titles of artistic works, should be quoted exactly according to common usage (e.g "Hannah worked at The Crestmont.") Titles Titles are to be capitalized when they immediately precede an individual's name. Do not capitalize titles when used as a substitute for the name or in a sentence. (e.g. or ) Locations * Names of institutions ( ) are proper nouns and require capitals. * Generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) do not take capitals: :: * Political or geographical units such as cities, towns, and countries follow the same rules: as proper nouns they require capitals; but as generic words (sometimes best omitted for simplicity) they do not. :: Headers There must not 'be links in section headers. Italicization # Series and book titles, and other titles from the real world such as books or movies, should be italicized in articles to emphasize its separation from the in-universe telling of the stories. The only exception would be in infoboxes. # Italicize only the elements of the sentence affected by the emphasis. Do not italicize surrounding punctuation e.g. , not . Punctuation Apostrophes * No apostrophes for dates (e.g. 1970s); apostrophes are only used with dates when truncated (e.g. '70s). * Consistent use of the straight (or typewriter) apostrophe ( ' ) is recommended, as opposed to the typographic (or curly) apostrophe ( ’ ). * For the possessive of singular nouns ending with just one s'', add just an apostrophe. * For a normal plural noun, ending with a pronounced ''s, form the possessive by adding just an apostrophe e.g. his sons' wives. Brackets and parentheses * '''If a sentence contains a bracketed phrase, place the sentence punctuation outside the brackets (as shown here). * If one or more sentences are wholly inside brackets, place their punctuation inside the brackets. There should be no space next to the inner side of a bracket. An opening bracket should be preceded by a space, except in unusual cases; for example, when it is preceded by an opening quotation mark, another opening bracket, or a portion of a word. Ellipse An ellipsis is an omission, often used in a printed record of conversation. The ellipsis is represented by ellipsis points: a set of three dots. ; Style : Ellipsis points, or ellipses, have traditionally been implemented in three ways: :* Three unspaced periods (...). This is the easiest way in the context of web publishing, and gives a predictable appearance in HTML. .' :* ''Pre-composed ellipsis character (…); generated with the … character entity, or as a literal "…". This is harder to input and edit, and too small in some fonts. .' :* ''Three spaced periods (. . .). This is an older style that is unnecessarily wide and requires non-breaking spaces to keep it from breaking at the end of a line e.g. . . . . It is now generally confined to some forms of print publishing. .' ; Function and implementation : Use an ellipsis if material is omitted in the course of a quotation, unless square brackets are used to gloss the quotation (see above, and points below). :* Put a space on each side of an ellipsis, except that there should be no space between an ellipsis and: :** a quotation mark directly following the ellipsis :** any (round, square, curly, etc.) bracket, where the ellipsis is on the inside :** sentence-final punctuation, or a colon, semicolon, or comma (all rare), directly following the ellipsis :* Only place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis if it is textually important (as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks, and rarely with periods). :* Use non-breaking spaces ( ) only as needed to prevent improper line breaks, for example: :** To keep a quotation mark from being separated from the start of the quotation ("... we are still worried"). :** To keep the ellipsis from wrapping to the next line. ; Pause or suspension of speech : Three periods (loosely also called ''ellipsis points) are occasionally used to represent a pause in or suspense of speech, in which case the punctuation is retained in its original form. Avoid this usage, except in direct quotations. ; With square brackets : An ellipsis does not normally need square brackets around it, because its function is usually obvious—especially if the guidelines above are followed. Square brackets, however, may optionally be used for precision, to make it clear that the ellipsis is not itself quoted; this is usually only necessary if the quoted passage also uses three periods in it to indicate a pause or suspension. The ellipsis should follow exactly the principles given above, but with square brackets inserted immediately before and after it. (e.g Hey it's Hannah. Hannah Baker ... It's me, live and in stereo. No return engagements, no encore, and this time, absolutely no requests. ... I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended). Quotation Marks * Users should not correct the capitalization, spelling, grammar, or word usage within direct quotes taken from copyrighted sources as such modifications jeopardize our Fair use claim on that material. Article quotes ought to be verbatim and any changes, edits, or exclusions should be explicitly noted by using square brackets ("[ ]"). * Per standards of American English, double quotation marks (" ") should be used and the period (full stop), comma, question and exclamation marks should be within the quotation. Single quotation marks (' ') should only be used when there is a quotation inside a quotation: "Why don't they put up a poster that says 'don't be a dick to people?'" Spacing * '''Never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation. * Always place a space after the punctuation marks just mentioned, unless it is the end of a paragraph, dot point, list element or the article. * Use one space after terminal punctuation. The use of double spaces is pointless as MediaWiki automatically condenses any number of spaces to just one when rendering the page. Vocabulary Formality Formal use of language is mandatory on all encyclopedia articles. * Contractions: Uncontracted forms such as Did not or He would are the default in encyclopedic style; don't and he'd are too informal. * Contested vocabulary: In encyclopedia articles, avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in a less-than-encyclopedic tone. Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, and call into question the reason for including the information in the first place. Do not tell readers that something is ironic, surprising, unexpected, amusing, coincidental, unfortunate, etc. This supplies a point of view. Simply state the sourced facts and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. * Familiar names: Some characters are often referred to using familiar names or nicknames. However, their use in encyclopedic articles must be strictly avoided, and a character must always be referred to by its full name when first mentioned, and surname only in subsequent references. There are two general exceptions to this rule: ** For characters that use a "codename", the full codename may be substituted for the full name or surname wherever they are mentioned. ** When a paragraph or section refers to at least two members of the same family, characters can be referred to by their first name, in order to clarify which one of the characters is being discussed. Perspectives In-universe Wiki articles that describe the series must be told in in-universe perspective and in chronological order of events. These include articles on characters, locations, events and objects. An in-universe perspective will strive for verisimilitude; that is, it will be written as if the audience existed as an observer within the story (imagine being an in-universe archivist who lives through the events as they occur as though they are very much real). Save for the occasional mention of out-of-universe elements (such as books, movies, and actions) in infoboxes, categories, and the "Trivia" and/or "Behind the scenes" sections, the rest of the article should be in-universe. Real-world Articles with topics that are not found within the series will be wholly out-of-universe, or real-world; this is the opposite of in-universe in the sense that articles are written from "our" perspective, and there is acknowledgment that the subject is fictional. This includes articles on shows, books, people, authors, actors, and crew members. NPOV To be able to properly give out the best information, one must write or edit articles with a completely neutral or objective point of view, meaning a user is without any bias, opinion, or general advice. This simply means that when you edit articles, refrain from using the words like "I"—"I think", or "I like, I hate." Avoid writing about what "some people" or "many fans" say or think. Instead, write about facts from within the series. You may also include information from official sources, but please be sure to provide a link to the source so that other users can verify it's true. Third person To be able to effectively narrate the stories in an in-universe and a neutral point of view, the third person narrative will be applied all across the wiki's articles. In the third-person narrative mode, each and every character should be referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they", and never as "I" or "we" (first-person), or "you" (second-person). In this third-person narrative, it is obvious that the writer is merely an unspecified entity or un-involved person that conveys the story. Quotations Types of Quotes Under the section "Quotes" under any page, Quotations should follow this general format: For opening quotes, use the template: Using them The first quote template above, should be filled in as (1) being the thing that was said and (2) being who said it, followed by a source, which can reference to another page on this wiki (when linking to another page in the box you need to fill in, please write (or copy and paste) anything that comes after the words "wiki/", if you copy the full link including "https://13reasonswhy.wikia.com/" it can be seen as an external link), (e.g. please write "Clay Jensen", instead of "https://13reasonswhy.wikia.com/wiki/Clay Jensen") . If being used on a cast or crew member page, it can be linked to a webpage. The second quote template above has a different style, it has big round quotation marks on each side, inside a border. There are certain things that are hidden, such as the SaidBy and Source option, which is where you fill in who the quote was said by, and where it came from, such as an episode (and once again don't have a page be an external link by linking our full URL, just the name of the episode). These are hidden in the case of editing a crew or cast members page, such as depicted on this page. Which don't need a SaidBy because you are already on the page of the person who is saying it, in the case that there needs to be a reference, it gets added at the end, which you may want to type out, out of template form and then copy and paste it in source mode and come back to the visual editor, either that or you can learn how references are done. Please understand and remember that you need to provide as much information as possible (for instance: source, page if applicable, and characters speaking if applicable). Sourcing Use the Filebox template or the appropriate fair use template. See also Category:Policies and Guidelines